During placement
Establishing expectations and understanding placement requirements is important for the successful progression of the placement. On this page, you can find steps that will guide you through the placement.
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Set objectives and complete contract
During the first days on placement, students should meet with their external supervisor to discuss each party’s expectations of the placement and a contract should be prepared outlining the aims and objectives of the placement, hours of work, skills to be gained, nature of the supervised activities, reporting arrangements, responsibilities of supervisor and trainee and methods of providing feedback. The document must identify the core learning experiences of the placement (skill development, observational experiences, clinical work, etc.) as verifiable goals. Students should develop their own contract using the template shown in Appendix 4 and found on SONIA (see appendix 2 for instructions). This contract should be completed via SONIA, electronically signed and dated by the student and the external supervisor. Contact the Placement Coordinators if further information is required.
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Outline placement duration
Typically, students spend 15 hours (two days per week) on each of Clinical Placements 2 and 3 until they have been on placement for the required number of days. It is difficult to provide students with an exact indication of how long it will take them to complete Clinical Placement 1 (PSYC90012) as the requirement is 80 hours of face-to-face contact with clients and so the pace with which that placement is completed depends on the number of clients seen and frequency of client sessions. As an estimate Clinical Placement 1 takes approximately 5-6 months to complete.
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Sign student logbooks
Students will ask you to sign their logbook either fortnightly or every 30 hours of placement, whichever comes first.
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Supervision of placement
Supervision of placements should involve on average one hour of direct contact for each full day of placement (includes telephone and video conference). Usually, for a 2-day/week placement, at least one hour per week of formal supervision is expected, with the other hour of supervision provided on an ad-hoc basis or via other mental health professionals on the team or in group supervision. Both students and supervisors should be aware that any clinical documentation prepared by the trainee (e.g., case notes, reports and letters) must bear the signature of their supervisor.
Additional information
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Guidelines for Supervisor
- Energetically orient the trainee to the service (e.g., relevant staff members, equipment, physical environment, processes).
- Clearly establish the student’s role within the organisation, including details of the work expected.
- Develop a relationship with the student that facilitates frank and open discussion of difficulties and potential problems.
- Demonstrate a commitment to the supervision relationship (e.g., by prioritising supervision appointments and making supervision arrangements explicit from the outset).
- Provide concrete and detailed feedback on all aspects of the student’s performance (including observation of the trainee in action) on a regular basis.
- Attempt to directly sample the student’s work via observation as often as possible.
- Provide an opportunity for the student to observe the supervisor, and other staff, where appropriate.
- Provide the student with “model” reports and provide detailed feedback regarding report writing where appropriate.
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Assessments
- This is to be completed at a mid-placement review meeting (described below) and again at the end of every placement. This document includes a section completed by the supervisor assessing various aspects of the trainee’s performance.
- Dr. Catharine McNab as the Placement Coordinator will organise a mid-placement meeting between the student, the placement supervisor and the University.
- Shortly after commencing, a Placement Coordinator will also contact both students and external supervisors earlier to get an informal progress report, to ensure that any problems with the placement are detected sufficiently early.
- The final piece of documentation that needs to be submitted (in addition to completed log book and completed mid/end of placement review) is a brief 300-500 word placement summary, which describes the student’s placement experience, learnings and reflections.
Need Help?
| Catharine McNab External Placement Coordinator t: 03 8344 1211 e: clinical-placements-psych@unimelb.edu.au | Christina Bryant Director of the Clinical Program t: 03 8344 2627 e: cbryant@unimelb.edu.au |
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